By JACQUES STEINBERG

Published: September 24, 2004

Dick Thornburgh, the former attorney general selected by CBS to help investigate a flawed report broadcast earlier this month on ''60 Minutes,'' sharply criticized that program in a memoir published last year.

In the book, ''Where the Evidence Leads'' (University of Pittsburgh Press), Mr. Thornburgh described ''60 Minutes'' as having ''chimed in with its usual sensationalized treatment'' in a 1992 report about the Justice Department's handling of an investigation into illegal lending by an Italian bank.

When, as Mr. Thornburgh writes in the book, ''60 Minutes'' later sought to interview him because he had been an under secretary general of the United Nations, Mr. Thornburgh demurred, ''because of my previous shabby treatment on it, turning down even a personal plea from Mike Wallace himself.''

In a telephone interview yesterday, Mr. Wallace said he considered Mr. Thornburgh an inappropriate choice to lead an independent investigation, but not because of what he had written.

''It occurs to me that on the team of investigators should be someone who has experience with how a television piece is put together,'' Mr. Wallace said. ''He has none, as far as I know.''

Reached last night, Mr. Thornburgh said he had no comment.

A spokeswoman for CBS News, Sandra Genelius, said that before accepting the appointment, Mr. Thornburgh had advised the president of CBS News, Andrew Heyward, that he had written about ''60 Minutes'' in his book. Ms. Genelius characterized Mr. Thornburgh's handling of the matter with Mr. Heyward as ''further testament to his integrity.''

On Wednesday, CBS announced that Mr. Thornburgh and Louis D. Boccardi, a former top executive of The Associated Press, would be the two-member panel that would examine a report, first broadcast on ''60 Minutes,'' that raised new questions about President Bush's service in the National Guard. The network now says the report was based on documents it cannot authenticate and should not have broadcast.

After Mr. Thornburgh's appointment was first announced, Dan Rather, the anchor on the broadcast who initially vouched for the documents undergirding it, was said by several colleagues and associates to be upset by the choice. He was reacting, in part, to Mr. Thornburgh's having served two Republican presidents -- Mr. Bush's father and Richard M. Nixon -- with whom Mr. Rather had clashed publicly.